During the November 2010 gathering in the African country’s capital Kinshasa, the group stacked up a bill of £17,067 per head.

It means taxpayers forked out more than £2,000 per MEP per day.

However, the Daily Express understands the total bill for the British contingent of MEPs was significantly less than the average.

The scandalous bill, 141 times the £121 average annual income in Congo, indicates that the relentless juggernaut of EU excess shows no sign of slowing down.

It also adds further weight to the Daily Express crusade to get Britain out of the EU altogether.

The MEPs were attending a meeting of the African-Caribbean Pacific and EU (ACP-EU) joint parliamentary assembly to discuss with MPs from the developing countries how to tackle poverty in the world’s poorest regions.

Critics said the cost was “disgusting” and “an affront to taxpayers”.

Matthew Elliot, of the campaign group the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Taxpayers are sick of hearing of one EU junket after another. It’s disgusting these MEPs racked up the equivalent of some British taxpayers’ annual salary in a matter of days.”

Shocking figures reveal a 64-strong ACP-EU delegation of MEPs had previously jetted out to Tenerife in January 2010. They racked up travel and hotel bills of £588,404 or £9,193 each, in one week. In comparison, a week in a junior suite at London’s Ritz Hotel is a snip at £3,928.

In July of the same year, 13 of the ACP-EU MEPs travelled to the exotic Indian Ocean Seychelle Islands for a five-day trip that cost the taxpayer £4,374 per head in travel, hotel and “logistics” bills.

In addition, a group of four MEPs went to Argentina in March 2010 costing £21,878 a day for each MEP.

Meanwhile seven MEPs on the European parliament’s trade committee managed to rack up travel, hotel and other bills of £5,384 each over four days in springtime Rome.

Overall, the cost of first class flights and luxury hotels for the trips in 2010 hit a colossal £230million. The financial details of these trips were uncovered following an inquiry into spiralling costs by MEPs on the parliament’s budget committee.

The figures, seen by the Daily Express, show the huge bills presented to taxpayers for keeping MEPs in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.

Marta Andreasen, a Ukip MEP and the European Commission’s former chief accountant, described the costs as “astonishing” at a time when the EU was imposing austerity programmes on the eurozone.

She said: “Even as the eurozone crisis was starting to bite hard in 2010, MEPs were rewarding themselves with self-serving and largely pointless delegation visits.

“These figures are an appalling abuse of public money. They should hang their heads in shame.”

A European parliament spokesman insisted the figures include costs for accompanying staff and hiring meeting rooms.

She said: “These meetings provide the only way in which elected representatives of, for example, the ACP former colonies, can make their wishes heard.”

A spokesman for Conservative MEPs said of the Congo trip: “This was anything but a jolly. Anybody who has ever been to the Democratic Republic of the Congo knows it is not exactly a tourist destination. The cost per head would be exaggerated by the excessive number of interpreters and other staff which EU rules demand are sent on these trips.

“The flights would have been very expensive as there is no competition on the routes.

“The work we did in Kinshasa was very demanding and far from frivolous. We were involved in a series of high-level meetings.

“A great deal of EU aid is spent in that region and we consider it important to engage with legislators there to help ensure it is spent properly.”